The Durham Council of Garden Clubs was founded in 1929 in federation with the National Garden Club and The Garden Club of North Carolina, Inc.
The Council served more than eight decades as the umbrella group for garden clubs and junior garden clubs in Durham, NC. Today, Durham Garden Clubs continue the same mission of philanthropic projects of preservation, conservation, education and beautification under District 9 of the Garden Clubs of NC.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Labyrinths Offer Homeowners a Pathway to Peace

It took 5,000 square feet of bluestone to create the labyrinth which is set in lush fescue. Photo by Dorothy Hong for WSJ.

By Amy GamermanWSJ, Dec. 17, 2015“All I asked for was just a little place to walk the walk,” said Ruth Ann Harnisch, a 65-year-old philanthropist.What she got—after a massive, two-year earthwork project at her home in New York’s Hamptons—is an 86-foot tripartite path of hand-cut stone, set in lush fescue grass. It took 5,000 square feet of North River bluestone to create the intricately winding walkway—called a labyrinth—which has 18 looping turns and is encircled by a 300-foot-long fieldstone wall. The pavers were set in dry-pack mortar on top of concrete wire mesh, to hold them in place. An underground irrigation system was installed to keep the grass bright and shaggy.Thirteen mature Yoshino cherry trees, trucked into the site, ring the labyrinth. In the springtime, they shower its walkways with white blossoms. “It’s magical,” said Bill Harnisch, 69, president and CEO of Peconic Partners, an investment firm.Labyrinths—circular paths for walking meditation that have been widely adapted by churches, hospitals and retreat centers—are now popping up in upscale American backyards. “There are 3,740 labyrinths in the U.S.—it’s really blossoming,” said Lauren Artress, author of “Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice.” Some are simple, such as the 30-foot spiral of desert stones that Andrew Weil, the physician, author and founder of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, built at his home in Tucson. Other, more lavish walkways evoke the 13th-century labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral in France.See full article, video and slideshow of labyrinths built around the US at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/labyrinths-offer-homeowners-a-pathway-to-peace-1450364046